Interview from spring 2004 for Tommys zine from Russia (not published yet.)
 
1] OK, may be first tell us when & how have you got involved in the punk?
It was back in 1988/89. Before I was a big metal-head, but as I began to look for something more extreme, faster and louder musically, I just naturally discovered the punk rock. Back then in the communist dictatorship times the good rock music in Czechoslovakia was in the “underground” and had a feeling of some alternative and opposition against the regime, so this was also very appealing. In my hometown Brno there was very strong opposition/dissent movement and some cultural activities were connected to it – nonconformist rock bands, theatres etc. My mother worked for the theatre, which was back then very well known for its alternative and critical towards the system performances, so I was very closed to this environment since I was cca 12-13 years old. In May 1989 my mother took me to Prague where she had to sort something out in some youth club and in the same evening ZONA A {fucking great Slovakian punk rock band} played – this was total blast for me and I got hooked to punk rock. Slowly I started to get all the demo and live recordings of Czechoslovakian punk bands, I also bought the one and only official Czechoslovakian punk record – VISACI ZAMEK 7” and I started to attend the rare punk gigs in Brno with couple of friends. Of course that after the November 89 revolution it became so easy to be into punk rock and hardcore as there was also a big revolution in music – almost everybody started to play, the older bands who were banned during communist times started to release records, there were hundreds of gigs and the feeling of total freedom was also very cool… and very short. I started my first punk band in the beginning of 1990 while attending high school and somewhat I still play till today.
 
2] Tell us about your zine “Hluboka Orba”. Your achievements as a zinester? Are you still active with that?
I started it in summer 1993 so last year there was the 10 years anniversary of the zine {w/issue 24 released}. But I was involved in zine-making already before, here in Brno there was a collective of punks, which did zine and organized several demonstrations and other street actions together in early 90’s and I was involved there too. Through all these years H.O. zine became probably longest running Czech zine and also the zine with biggest press run {1.000 copies of last issue}. It is written in Czech language, comes out 1-2x in year, it’s pretty thick and I try to do my best to mix the hardcore/punk music from all the different parts of the world {not only the hyped US/UK stuff – fuck the cultural imperialism!} and politics. I think that the zine is still very D.I.Y., there’s no major label crap and I even don’t review CD’s {I want to support vinyls and tapes only as the truest punk formats – at least in my opinion}. I like to have really long and in-depth interviews in the zine, some of the bands/labels/people I interviewed in H.O. were for example CAPITALIST CASUALTIES, EBOLA {uk}, Pablo/Strongly Opposed Records, NULA, CRIPPLE BASTARDS, DISCLOSE, SPAZZ, AGATHOCLES, DS 13, SEEIN RED, ORCHID, Mike Thorn/Maximum RockNRoll, Ken/Prank Records, Fred/Darbouka Records, DISORDER and many, many more. As you can see, I am more interested in fast/raw kind of hardcore/punk. There were also articles about veganism, A.L.F., anti-smoking, Zapatistas, anti-globalisation movement {reprinted interviews with Chomsky, Biafra etc.} printed. I also like to write a lot about my travels – like the various tours around Europe with my bands {MRTVA BUDOUCNOST before, SEE YOU IN HELL today} or my own travel experiences – in 2003 I was in California and just recently I visited Japan and in both places I met lots of punx, saw many shows, bought tons of records and had some excellent times, so this is always a good topic to write about. Now, when I became a father, I have a little less time than before, I hope that I will be able to put out one issue per year. By the way, if there are some cool Russian hardcore/punk bands with demo-tape releases, make sure to send me a copy for review!
 
3] What can you advise for the beginners?
Just do everything to satisfy yourself first – you should be the first one who is satisfied with the product you have choose to make, be it zine or band. Otherwise it is senseless. But in the same time make sure to strive for the best quality, don’t be a slacker, don’t rip the other people off along the way and be honest. And be yourself – don’t listen up to somebody’s else’s commands.
 
4] Why did you stopped making “Hluboka Orba”?
I haven’t stopped it yet.
 
5] What keeps you sane in a current political climate? Do you thrown any stone into cops?
Well… I used to do some stone throwing on cops and nazis back in mid 90’s but it wasn’t here in Czech, but in Germany, where I used to go to infamous 1st May demonstrations/riots in Berlin and Leipzig. But this was long time ago. I think that it’s important to realize which things you can change by yourself and which are unable to change in short period. I work for social-ecological organization, which I started with some friends in 1997 and we lead different campaigns in environmental and human rights protection field. For example we try to fight the expansion of big shopping malls {hypermarkets}, we have some smaller local issues – mostly with transport {like against new motorway building or promoting the public and bicycle transport}, we have campaign against the export of arms from Czech Republic. We also help the Chechnya refugees and in the past we did many actions against the war in Chechnya and Russian occupation. The most radical was throwing the red paint on Russian consulate building here in Brno few years ago – 4 people from our organization were prosecuted by it and sentenced to 100 hours of community work. These are the kind of activities which keep me sane – it’s important to deal with both local and global issues and also to try to change your own life-style {like being vegetarian/vegan, boycotting the worst multinational companies, recycle etc.}.
 
6] OK. What about “Mrtva Budouchnost”? Why it splitted up? What’s the difference between “MB” and “See you in hell”?
MRTVA BUDOUCNOST played from 1994 till 2000 and in the end we became a bit tired by it, so we decided to split up on peaceful terms. It’s great that almost all the band-members of M.B. still play in different bands. Marsta {voc} sings for grindcore band called LYCANTHROPHY {they have many releases out, check out www.lycanthrophy.wz.cz}, 2nd singer Rosi has band called MY DEAD CAT {emo}, bass player Marek now plays guitar for FESTA DESPERATO {great band from Brno, we share the same rehearsal room and play often together, they play raw punk/noise influenced by old Finnish bands like RIISTETYT or KAAOS}, the drummer Chico organizes shows in his Znojmo hometown and he used to played in fun-project of SYIH called TUZEX, which played cover-songs of old Czechoslovakian punk bands exclusively. Another ex-singer Korda is doing ska zine called Banana… The difference between M.B. and SEE YOU IN HELL – the first recordings of SYIH were kind of complicated screaming hardcore with touch of metal, but when we changed the drummer in 2002 we started to sound more and more like M.B. MRTVA BUDOUCNOST was just super-fast extreme HC slaughter with almost no slow parts and when we started SYIH in 1999 we wanted to sound a bit differently. But as the years went we sound faster/rawer and today is our sound in total crusty/thrash/Jap HC vein. Check out our LP, which will be out during this summer on Insane Society and Ultima Ratio Records.
 
7] Can you describe “See you in hell” as a political band? Why?
I am not sure how do you define “political band”. We certainly don’t promote any specific ideology and we don’t pretend to have all the answers for every political issue in the world. Being little older than the average hardcore/punk listener {most of band members are in their late 20’s or early 30’s} I would say that we have seen too much so radical bands, which later turned out into apolitical assholes, into totally conformist apathetical citizens or into total drunks, that we are maybe a little bit skeptical to describe ourselves like this. I think that we are pretty political in the way how do we run the band – in totally DIY way, playing only small shows, working only with small labels and people we know. We don’t try to break into mainstream, we don’t want to see our band in some glossy rock magazines, in TV or radio – like so many other so called “hardcore/punk” bands in Czech today. I find it always funny when so many “radicals” or “anarchists” defend crap like CHUMBAWAMBA – I thought that being radical and anti-capitalist is about rejecting this fucked up system and with musical business being one of the biggest part of the capitalist machine {I think it is most profitable one just after arms and drug trade} it seems to me just logical that these people would look for some real alternative also in music. It’s funny to hear how do they play CHUMBAWAMBA’s music even in casinos here… fucking funny.
 
8] What do you wanna say by your lyrics?
Most of our lyrics deals with issues like control in this society, frustrations from being unable to change anything, the power to go on and never give up, the technology fucking us up, frustrations from relationships and never reaching your dreams etc. They are not very optimistical.
 
9] What has been changed in “See you in hell” since time you’ve started playing in your opinion?
As I already said, the music has changed a lot along with line-up. Other than that the band still works in the same way. Once in a year we do some longer {2 weeks} tour abroad, we play often around Czech and here in Brno, we put out some new release every year. I would say we all love this DIY hardcore/punk thing and I don’t think we will stop any time soon.
 
10] What was the biggest problem the band has met?
Some fucked up relationships with ex-band members, but this is sorted out for some time already and now we are really good friends in the band, so everything is OK.
 
11] Please, tell us something about Czech scene? Could you mention some bands, labels, zines of checking out?
I think that Czech hardcore/punk scene is totally great – there are like 20-30 really good ass-kicking bands, most of them have some releases out, make sure to check them out! I would mention just few of them: GRIDE {extreme HC/grind}, HOMO CONSUMENS {raw punk like MOB 47/WRETCHED}, CO-CA {punk as fuck like DEAD KENNEDYS or SUBHUMANS}, AD CALENDAS GRAECAS {raw punk as fuck with 100% of energy}, MALIGNANT TUMOUR {heavy crust/mince core}, MASSGENOCIDE PROCESS {crust as fuck}, FESTA DESPERATO {raw punk terror}, BALACLAVA {positive and powerful HC}, LAHAR {extreme HC}, SPACE TO BEING {extreme HC}, SICHERHATE SYSTEM {raw punk}, V.I.R. {heavy crust/industrial}, ZEMEZLUC {punk rock veterans}, V.V.B. {political hip-hop punk}, INNOXIA CORPORA {powerful punk} etc. Make sure to Czech out the “Dying Alive/Living Dead” comp. LP/tape, which I put together and which was released in cooperation of cca 10 labels in summer 2003. It has 12 Czech raw HC bands and 60 pages booklet with detailed history of Czech scene from 1977 till 2003 written in English and with tons of photos!
We have also some good gig spaces – like the DIY-run club called VRAH in Roznov pod Radhostem {north-east part of country} which has pretty active scene around it {CO-CA, Malarie Records, V.V.B.}, Yacht Club here in Brno or Milada squat and 007 Club in Prague. There are many {recently TOO many foreign bands touring Czech} all the time. Best labels are in my opinion Insane Society Records, Ultima Ratio Records, Impregnate Records, Malarie Records, Day After Records, Phobia Records… Sadly there are not too many interesting zines in last years. Check out the www.czechcore.cz website for more info about the scene in Czech, even there’s always lots of crap and unbelievably moronic discussions all the time in the message boards. But you can find some useful contacts there and also the best info about gigs in Czech and Slovakia.
 
12] What D.I.Y. ethics mean to you? Would you for example put out your stuff on such labels like “Earache”?
DIY means keeping the punk in the hands of punks and not businessmen. For me this is the only way music has any authenticity. Simply said. Yes, I would put out our record on Earache. In 1986.
 
13] Your revelation of 2003.
???
 
14] OK, next one is a kind of word-play. I’m gonna throw some things at you and you gotta say the first thing that comes into your head, OK?
 
Well, I don’t like to speak in slogans and short phrases, so I will probably write a little bit more about each topic…sorry!
 
a) European Union
Just yesterday Czech Rep. joined it. A clever plot how to make multinational companies richer and strong states in EU stronger. Of course that Czech Rep. being the new state in EU has all the disadvantages – we can’t work for next few years in Western states legally {of course that people from these states can work in Czech}, there are still borders and border controls etc.
 
b) Czech beer
I used to be straight edge, I drink now, but I don’t like beer. Cheap home-made spirit rules.
 
c) Gun-possession
I don’t have big problem with it as long as there are some regulations and exams for the people who want to own them. In the end the criminals and mafias can always find the way how to get the weapons so I think that the rest of the society should have the right to get armed as well.
 
d) “Napalm Death”
My teenage love… I was blown away by “Scum” and “From Enslavement…” LPs period, but starting with “Harmony Corruption” I totally lost any interest as they became just an average death metal band. Few months ago they played here in Brno, just few streets away from my flat, so after much thinking I decided to go to see them for the first time in my life. I was almost sure that they will suck… and well… they sucked.  I keep their old records and videos, but they should have really split up after Bill and Lee left the band.
 
e) soft drugs like hemp
I don’t like it, but I am 100% for its legalization. It’s just sad to see so many young people getting stoned every time and fucking up their minds with this. But it’s their choice.
 
f) the NATO
MALIGNANT TUMOUR has one famous song called “Fuck The NATO”. I couldn’t put it better.
 
g) Brno squats
This is a good joke – have you ever heard about any? Then let me know. There was a really short-time lived squat in Brno back in 1997, which existed for cca 2-3 months and then was very violently evicted by cops.
 
h) Violence of cops
I have never heard about it. I think they are always right! hahaha
 
i) George Orwell’s “1984”
One of my fave books. Lots of SYIH’s and MB’s lyrics are influenced by this and also by the other Orwell’s books.
 
j) Animal Liberation Front
Some direct actions {when they liberate animals from laboratories etc.} are totally OK.
 
15] OK, when are you gonna play with “See you in hell” in Russia?
Haha… this is a good question! Well, I think that at first we should be a little better known in your country before even thinking about coming to play to Russia. We play since 1999 and our split 7” with THE PUBLIC was co-released by our friend Sharapov from St. Petersburg, but still I think that we are not known at all – maybe MRTVA BUDOUCNOST is, but not SEE YOU IN HELL. We would definitely like to release a tape on some honest and reliable DIY label in Russia! The other thing is, that I am not totally sure how difficult or easy it is to set up few gigs for foreign band in your country. I can imagine that it must be super-difficult to get any decent space for shows {maybe it is possible to do it in Moscow or St. Peterburg, but I am really not sure about the rest of the country}. Also we are no rock-stars, but we like to get at least food, sleeping places + 100 EU for gig for gas and van rental and I am afraid that it is still too much in ex-USSR countries. Our friends PAZI SNAJPER tried to tour Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia in the autumn 2002 and they told us that it was very difficult – sometimes they got no money or food at all and sometimes there were like 15 or 20 people only attending the gigs. I personally don’t know so many foreign bands, which would be so brave to tour ex-USSR countries incl. Russia… I know that M.D.C. did it in early 90s, that DETESTATION and OI POLLOI played in Estonia, maybe some Finnish bands as well… Also I got the impression that it’s mostly street punk/oi and NYHC styles, which are very popular in your country, and we definitely don’t sound like this – we are much faster and noisier, haha… Don’t get me wrong, we would definitely like to come, but we would like to be sure that it will work out OK. Here in Czech it was also in the early 90s pretty difficult to set up tours for foreign bands – there were no stable places and nobody had the experiences how to do it, also the financial situation wasn’t the best. But today is the Czech Republic one of the favorite destinations of foreign bands when they tour Europe and sometimes there are so many gigs that people loose the interest. I am sure that in the near future it will be very similar in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine etc. – the hardcore/punk has no boundaries and I am sure there is still lots of energy and power in these countries HC/punk scenes – because it is still something fresh and unique for the people in your part of the world, while in the West are people sometimes a bit bored and spoiled by hardcore/punk, because everything is so easy for them {they can buy the punk music and clothes in supermarkets, they can watch the bands in MTV etc. – fuck it!}.
 
16] Last words, comments, whatever…
Fuck, I can imagine how difficult it has to be in Russia with any DIY punk or radical political activities… I distribute the Abolishing The Borders From Below magazine, which deals with anarchist activities in ex-East Bloc countries and some of the articles from Russia reads like sci-fi or even like horror…
If there are any bands playing fastcore, raw punk, crust or some other cool sub-genre of punk {NO emo, NYHC, metal pop punk etc.!}, then please get in touch, we can trade tapes. I love GRAZHDANSKAJA OBORONA – their 80s stuff, lets trade records!
Thanx a lot for this interview Tom, good luck with the zine!